(v13) Interpretation and rendering

This page applies to Harlequin v13.1r0 and later; and to Harlequin Core but not Harlequin MultiRIP.

Execution of a PostScript-language compatible job is divided into two phases for each page: interpretation and rendering. During interpretation the description of a page is converted into a display list, a representation of the graphic elements on the page which is more suited to the rapid output required by an output device. The display list is a non-procedural representation of the page and holds information in device-dependent form, sorted in a suitable order for rendering.

The rendering phase takes the display list and converts the graphic elements to pixels in a raster. The process of converting the coordinates of a boundary of a fill or stroke to a set of contiguous points in a raster is called scan conversion.